The battle for Milwaukee proved to be indecisive, as Marquette’s night match Wednesday against Wisconsin-Milwaukee ended in a 1-1 draw after two overtimes.
The Golden Eagles dominated the first half, keeping possession and not yielding a shot on goal. In the 20th minute, Ally Miller headed in a Lauren Thut corner kick to give Marquette an early 1-0 lead.
Late in the second half, however, UWM’s Keara Thompson scored a game-tying goal in the 70th minute on the Panthers’ first shot on net of the entire match.
Two overtimes ensued with no golden goal to decide the outcome, ending the game in a draw and leaving Marquette (3-2-2) with a feeling of discontent that has now become more common than coach Markus Roeders would like.
“Unfortunately we’ve been through it a few times now.” said Roeders, “The margin for error for us is unfortunately so small, unless we can score two or three goals.”
Letting matches like Wednesday night’s slip from wins into losses and draws is a trend that the Golden Eagles would like to eliminate.
Despite dominating the areas of possession, the offense’s inability to score late in games has become a recurring problem.
Against UWM, the defense did its part, keeping the ball out of Marquette’s zone and putting the pressure on the Panthers.
The offense struggled mainly on capitalizing as it tallied 10 shots in the first half and 12 in the second with only Miller’s goal to show for it.
The offensive woes continued into both overtimes as the Golden Eagles were unable to produce a game winner despite five shots and continued defensive tenacity. Towards the end of the first overtime, Marquette nearly lost on a UWM header that narrowly missed the mouth of the net and clanged off the crossbar.
“Really what we need to fix is on the offensive end,” Roeders said. “We can’t just ask our team to have shut outs and walk away with a 1-0 win. Sometimes that’s going to happen and in the other games it won’t.”
Adding to the discouragement was the fact Marquette missed an opportunity to get an annually desired win against their cross-town rivals, the Panthers (2-2-2), and to avenge an earlier loss by the men’s team.
“Ties are never fun,” said team captain Ashley Bares. “It’s a little disappointing. We wanted to come out and defend the Valley and get a win.”
In the long run, however, these disappointments are fixable, and it is still early enough in the season to make the necessary changes needed to improve the team’s offensive production and consistency.
“Its better to have this happen now than have it happen in the future.” Miller said.
Marquette will travel to Provo, Utah, to take on BYU this Saturday before opening Big East play against South Florida in Tampa the following week. With a list of tough conference opponents looming just over the horizon, Marquette will have its work cut out for it if it wants to be where it was predicted to be, among the top teams in the Big East.
